ORIGINAL PAPER

National transport policy in Austria – from its beginning till today

Guenter Emberger1

Received: 7 October 2016 /Accepted: 4 January 2017 /Published online: 24 January 2017# The Author(s) 2017. This article is published with open access at SpringerLink.com

AbstractIntroduction The objective of the paper is to research the his-toric development of the Austrian transport policy. It exploreswhen a transport strategy was made for the first time, fromwhom, and which purpose was pursuit. It shows how the ob-jectives of the transport strategy changed over time and whenpassenger and freight transport took over to become the mainfocus of the planning process. Furthermore it is researchedwhen, and if, there was a change from a solely sectorialmono-modal transport strategy (road, rail separated) towardsan integrated transport planning process and when, and if, therewas a development away from a demand-fulfillment-driventransport planning paradigm towards a transport-demand-management driven transport planning strategy.Methods The information used stemmed from an analysis ofexisting transport master plans and other political documentsand reports published in Austria within the last decades. In asubsequent step the results of this analysis are assessed againstthe so called BIdeal Decision Making Process^ (IDMP) devel-oped in former research activities, and shows in a clear wayhow the transport strategy in Austria evolved and improvedover time.Results Comprehensive overview of the development ofAustria’s transport strategy over time including all means oftransport.

Conclusion The Austrian transport strategy evolved over thelast 40 years from a sectorial, demand-fulfillment-driventransport strategy towards an integrated multi-modal,demand-management-driven transport strategy includingsome environmental issues. Further, an outlook is providedin which direction the national transport planning strategiesshould be developed to be able to tackle future challengessuch economic, social and ecologic sustainability.

Keywords National transport Policy . Historicaldevelopment,Austria . Transport planning .National transportmaster plan

1 Introduction

All countries in Europe and elsewhere in the world strugglewith similar problems regarding transport: Congestion andtime losses, too few infrastructure, growing demand for mo-bility, growing demand in freight transport, shortcomings infinancing of new transport infrastructures, backlog in themaintenance of the existing infrastructure, environmentaland safety issues, to name only a few of them. Most of thecountries try to tackle these issues by preparing national trans-port master plans to address the above-mentioned challengesand to mitigate negative impacts of transportation on societyand environment.

In this paper, the main focus is to analyze how Austria hastackled these issues in the last century, which political process-es are in place and how successful Austria was/is in the field ofpreparing strategic national transport master plans (TMPs).

The paper is structured in the following way: In section 2background information about Austria is given. In addition, ashort history regarding the rail and road system developmentin Austria is provided. In Section 3 an overview of the

This article is part of Topical Collection on The development of NationalTransport Policy

* Guenter EmbergerGuenter.Emberger@tuwien.ac.at

1 Vienna University of Technology, Gusshausstrasse 30/2,Vienna 1040, Austria

Eur. Transp. Res. Rev. (2017) 9: 6DOI 10.1007/s12544-017-0223-2

government constellations in Austria since 1945 is providedand their governmental declarations regarding transport policyare summarised. Furthermore, a full list of existing documentsofficially published which describe the Austrian nationaltransport policy (= national transport master plans (TMP))are listed and commented by the author.

In Section 4, previous research regarding the identificationof an optimal decision-making process is introduced and inthe subsequent section an assessment of the Austrian TMPs –activities against this ideal decision making process is carriedout. In the final section, conclusions are drawn and furtherresearch needs are proposed.

2 Background information about Austria

Austria is a small country (about 84.000 km2) in the heart ofEurope. In Austria there are 8.4 million inhabitants (year2015), and the national language is German. Austria has bor-ders with eight countries (Germany, Czech Republic,Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Italy, Switzerland andLiechtenstein). In five of them a different language (= notGerman) is spoken. Before 1989, Austria was located on thewestern side of the Iron Curtain; since then the borders areopen and free travel to all neighboring countries is possible. Atpresent Austria is number 11 in the world ranking regardingGDP per capita.

In the following figures the development of some key in-dicators for Austria is given:

Figure 1 depicts the development of population in Austriaand the development of the number of cars on Austrian roads.As it can be seen, there took place a moderate increase inpopulation, while the number of cars exploded from 1950onwards. Nowadays there are in total more than 4 million carson the roads in Austria.

Figure 2 shows the economic development in Austria from1900 onwards. It can be seen there was a steady growth in theGDP per capita from 1950 (after WWII) onwards.

Figure 3 shows the development of the car motorisationrate in Austria,1 presently there are more than 500 cars per1000 inhabitants in Austria. There is a tendency that thegrowth of the motorisation rate is slowing-down in the lastdecade, but it is not foreseeable at the moment at which levelthe motorisation rate will peak.

Figure 4 shows the development of the indicators GDP percapita and the development of the Austrian population in rel-ative terms. Base year is the year 1950. As it can be seen, theGDP grows compared to the year 1950 by 6.5 times untiltoday, whereas the population has been more or less stable

in the same period. These developments are comparable todevelopments which took place in other European countries(Germany, Italy, France, UK, etc.).

Figure 5 shows the development of specific transport infra-structures in the UK supplemented with the motorway net-work development in Austria in percent of the total networklengths in kilometer. The first three curves depict the infra-structure development in the UK. Construction of canalsstarted around 1790 and was finished around 1850. Then rail-way construction started in the early 19th century and wasfinished around 1940 [3; p. 112]. The curve for the rail net-work of Austria is similar to the curve of the UK rail network,but a little bit later (about 10 to 15 years).

Then construction of the road network in the UK started in1870 and was almost finished in 1990. Of course there existedroads before the year 1870; in this investigation only roadconstruction for motorised vehicles was taken into consider-ation. In the present time, minor new road construction sitesstill exist, but the majority of the network is already finished.

A time-lagged but similar development of infrastructureconstruction can be found in Austria (rightmost curve inFig. 5 – here the development of the motor- and expresswaynetwork is shown). Remarkable here is the finding by Grüblerand Marchetti [1, 4] that the time lag between the differentkinds of infrastructures is about 60 years. They assumed thatthese time lags are likely the causes for the Kondratiev2 cy-cles. New means of transport will potentially fill the gap, suchas air transport and high speed trains.

A similar development of transport infrastructure increasetook place in all European countries in the time period afterWWII which fostered and enable the economic boom in the1960ies till 1980ies in Europe. More detailed information oninternational/national transport infrastructure developmentscan be found in [5; p.111 ff.].

2.1 History of rail way construction in Austria

First attempts to construct horse-drawn railways in Austriastarted in the year 1824 to connect Budweis (today ČeskéBudějovice in Czech Republic) to the Danube.

The first rail using steam engines was Kaiser-Franz-Ferdinands-Nordbahn opened in 1838, which became a veryprofitable system in the northern part of Austria. Since 1882, agradual nationalisation of the railway network of the Austro-Hungarian Empire into the Imperial Royal Austrian StateRai lways (Kaiser l ich-königl iche österreichischeStaatsbahnen, kkStB) took place.

1 The disruption of the trend line in year 2002/2003 is due to a change in thestatistical method used (adaption of vehicle counting following regulation(BVerordnung^) BGBl. II Nr. 193/2002).

2 In economics, Kondratiev cycles are the term for a regular S-shaped cycle inthe modern world economy. Fifty to sixty years in length, it consists of analternation of periods of high sectoral growth with periods of slower growth –for more info see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kondratiev_wave.

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By the outbreak of the World War I (WWI), the only majorrailway in Austria to remain in private hands was the AustrianSouthern Railway (Südbahn). After the break-up of theAustro-Hungarian Empire in the year 1918, the Austrian rumpof kkStB remained in state control under the nameDeutschösterreichische Staatsbahnen (DÖStB), which wasrenamed to Österreichische Staatsbahnen (ÖStB) in 1919. Inthe year 1923 was the foundation of the independent, com-mercial enterprise, the Bundesbahn Österreich. This companytook over the assets of the ÖStB and the Südbahn, togetherwith other minor railways.

In 1938 was the Anschluss of Austria into the GermanEmpire. The BBÖ was taken over by the DeutscheReichsbahn. During the World War II (WWII), about 41%of the Austrian railway network was destroyed.

In 1947, the company was reformed using the slightly dif-ferent name of Österreichische Bundesbahnen and the abbre-viation ÖBB as a state-owned company. Their infrastructurewas rebuilt and electrification was accelerated. In 1969 a newfederal railway law was enacted. The ÖBB became a non-independent, economic entity, which was run as a branch ofthe government’s industrial programme and remained entirelywithin the Federal budget.

In 1992 the ÖBB were separated from the federal budgetand turned into company with its own legal status. The com-pany was 100% owned by the Republic of Austria. Thischange had two primary aims: first, it had to conform to EUrules on the admission of Austria into the European Union.Second, the financial demand for public funding was to bereduced as a result of improvements in efficiency and thepressure of competition.

In 2004 the ÖBB were reorganised again into ÖBBHolding AG and a number of operating subsidiaries. The

holding company was to oversee the operations of the com-panies assigned to it, coordinate a coherent strategic approachand allocate tasks for the whole enterprise. In 2005 the sub-sidiaries of ÖBB-Holding AG became autonomous and inde-pendent operationally.3

Electrification of the system began in year 1912 but did notreach to an advanced status until the 1950s. The last steamlocomotive in regular service on the standard gauge networkretired in year 1978.

According to the Annual Report 2013 [6], the companyemploys 39,513 people. 13,599 of them are active employees,24,251 of them are retired employees (still on the payroll ofÖBB) and 1663 apprentices. In 2013, ÖBB-PersonenverkehrAG carried 469million passengers, of which 235million werebus passengers. The ÖBB rail network length is 4859 km,72% of which is electrified. The standard gauge is1435 mm. The ÖBB has 1128 train stations, 1093 locomo-tives, 2799 passenger carriages and 26,518 freight wagons. Italso operates 2200 busses: the ÖBB’s bus services travel52,500,000 km per year.

2.2 History of motorway construction activities in Austria

2.2.1 Beginning till World War II (WWII)

The first ideas to improve the existing road networktook place in the year 1926. There was the first designstudy of a motorway in Austria, namely the routeVienna – Semmering. This project was eventually not

3 Text based on https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geschichte_der_Eisenbahn_in_%C3%96sterreich and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_Federal_Railways

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Fig. 1 Development ofpopulation and car population inAustria for the period 1900 till2015

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realized. In 1928 a first plan for road infrastructure de-velopment BStraßenausbaukarte^ was made and in theyear 1936 the first Austrian BFernstraßennetz^ planwas designed by Leopold Oerley. This plan did notinclude any motorways [7; p.12].

2.2.2 World War II (WWII)

In March 1938 there was the BAnschluß^ of Austriainto Germany. In this moment Germany started simulta-n e ou s l y w i t h t h e e x t e n s i o n o f t h e Ge rmanBReichsautobahn^ network towards Austria. The

planning principle for motorways at this time was thatusers should be able to Bconsume^ the landscape whiledriving. Thus the shortest connection between two citieswas not in the focus of the road design. The experienceof the passed-by landscape was the premise for the roadlayout. In the very next month, namely on the 7th ofApril 1938 Adolf Hitler turned the first sod for theReichsautobahn between Salzburg and Vienna. It wasplanned to finalize this piece of motorway by April1941. In reality this stretch was finally realized yearslater. Because of the war in the year 1942 allReichsautobahn construction work stopped. At this time

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only two short motorway sections were finished with atotal length of 16.8 km [7; p.15].

In general it could be said that the German and AutrianBReichsautobahnen^ in the years 1937/1938 were classicalsupply orientated road infrastructure. This supply of motor-ways should have created demand for car traffic [7; p.14], butthe motorization rate at this time was very low (about 3.5 carsper 1000 inhabitants) and only a few intercity traffic tookplace.

2.2.3 Post World War II (WWII)

After the WWII there was high level of unemployment inAustria as elsewhere in Europe. The Austrian governmentwas therefore looking for possibilities to reduce it by investingin infrastructure projects. Construction work in the field ofroad construction was one of the opportunities to create a lotof workplaces, especially at this time, where the mechaniza-tion of road construction was in the fledgling stage. One of thefirst stretches to be built was the motorway between Salzburgand Vienna. In the following 30 years until the late 1970s therewas a boom in motorway construction in Austria – the net-work was expanded from about 20 km in the year 1950 tomore than 1000 km in the year 1980 (see Fig. 6).

In the period between 1980 and 2010 the motorway con-struction pace slowed down, with a present total length ofabout 2200 km in the year 2014. It can be said that the mo-torway network in Austria is finished and mature, at presentthere exist only some plans for some minor extensions of themotorway ne twork (e .g . A5 ex tens ion towardsCzech Republic, Lobau Tunnel near Vienna) and some exten-sions of additional lanes where the existing capacity of themotorways is thought to be close to their limits.

Figure 7 shows that the motorway network was expandedby more than 100 times in the last 60 years compared to thebase year 1950, and the number of cars increased by morethan 90 times in the same period.

Parallel to the construction and operation of the motor- andexpressway network the responsibility and organization of thenetwork responsibilities underwent several changes. AfterWW2 the government of Austria was the owner and in chargeof the construction of the motor- and expressway network ofAustria.

In 1953 the BAutobahn Studien G.m.b.H^. was founded todevelop the construction program for the motorway Salzburg-Vienna.

1954 it was decided to close the BAutobahn StudienG.m.b .H^ and the Min i s t ry fo r Commerce and

Development of Transport Infrastructure

over time in the UK and Austria

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Fig. 4 Relative development ofGDP per capita and populationgrowth in Austria for the period1900 till 2015

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Reconstruction took over the responsibilities. In the year 1963the Ministry for Commerce and Reconstruction enact a min-isterial order where the provinces of Austria became respon-sible for the construction and operation of the motor- andexpressway network. Based on this act a series of operationalmotorway companies (Bundesstraßengesellschaften) werefounded, owned by the federal state of Austria and the corre-sponding provinces with the duty to finance and to constructthe cost intensive (mostly alpine crossing) motor- and express-way routes (Brenner AutobahnAG, Tauernautobahn AG,Phyrn Autobahn AG, Arlbergs t raßentunnel AG,

Autobahnen- und Schnellstraßen AG, Wiener BundesstraßenAG, Karawanken Autobahn AG).

In 1982 the ASFINAG was founded as a central fi-nancing company. From this moment on, the credit op-erations were managed centrally for all motorway com-panies in Austria by the fully state-owned financingcompany ASFINAG. In 1993 the operational motorwaycompanies in Austria were merged into two companies:Alpen Straßen AG in the west, ÖsterreichischeAutobahnen- und Schnellstraßen AG for the rest ofAustria.

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Fig. 7 Relative development ofthe motorway network andnumber of private cars in Austriafor the period 1900 till 2015

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In 1997 ASFINAG assumed the overall responsibility for thenetwork and liabilities and got the right to collect tolls and usagefees on its own behalf (right of usufruct) additionally to therevenues from the special toll routes. At this time the toll sticker(Autobahnvignette) was introduced - a time-based toll for vehi-cles weighing less than 12 tons maximum permissible weight. Ittook another 7 years to implement a HGV (heavy good vehicle)toll system, since 2004 vehicles over 3.5 tons maximum permis-sible weight have to pay tolls depending on the route.

In 2006 ASFINAG was reorganized in a strategicholding and three main operative companies for (1)Toll ing, (2) planning and Construct ion and (3)Operation and Maintenance. Since that time ASFINAGis independent although state owned. It gets no taxes,ASFINAG is allowed to toll motor- and expresswaysbut it has to pay for operation, maintenance and construc-tion for its own.

3 Political background – austrian transport policy

Since the WWII Austria is a democratic country; in totalthere have been 28 different governments since 1945.Figure 8 provides an overview of the government constel-lations in Austria from 1945 until todays. In the periodbetween 1945 and 1970 the dominating party was the

Austrian People’s Party, but had to form a coalition withthe Social Democratic Party until 1966. From 1967 on-wards until 1970 the People’s Party was in charge withoutthe need for a coalition partner. In 1970 the responsibilityswitched to the Social Democratic Party until 1983, fromthis time onwards they had to form a coalition with theFreedom Party, which existed till 1986. In the period1986 till 2000 a coalition between the Social DemocraticParty and the Austrian People’s Party under the lead of theSocial Demographic Party was in place.

In 2000 there was a major change, a government co-alition between the Austrian People’ Party and theFreedom Party was introduced and they worked togetheruntil 2007. Since then, again Austria is governed by acoalition of the Social Democratic Party and the AustrianPeople’s Party - this coalition is in place till today.

In Fig. 8 also an overview is providedwhenmajor transportrelated documents were published by the responsible minis-tries/ministry. At this place it has to be mentioned that until theyear 2000 the responsibilities for road construction and main-tenance and the responsibilities for construction and mainte-nance of the rail network were not located in the same minis-try. Looking back it could be said that this consolidation ofcompetences was one of the most important activities reachedwithin the coalition between the Austrian People’s Party andthe Freedom Party.

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Fig. 8 Austrian governments since 1945 and transport related documents (colours in the graphic refer to the colours political parties use in Austria)

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Steiniger [8] provided a list of all Austrian governmentdeclarations since 1945. By analysing these official publishedgovernment’s declarations of the 28 above mentioned govern-ments, three different phases regarding transport policy can beidentified:

3.1 Phase 1: 1950–1970

In the early period after WW2 road construction was mainlyseen as an instrument to reduce unemployment – major roadconstruction activities took place at this time. The road con-struction activities comprised some stretches of the motorwaynetwork, a second focus was put on improvements of trunkroads to enable and foster the tourism, which was growing inthis period. The financing of the infrastructure improvementwas easily financed from the income generated from the fueltax paid by the car drivers. In the rail sector the electrificationof the main routes of the network was on the agenda. At theend of the 1960s, the demand for fuel became higher than theinland production – to avoid a dependency on a limited num-ber of continental oil suppliers, the government made plans toconstruct oil pipelines to harbours at the Mediterranean Sea tohave access to world-wide oil suppliers. It was also recognisedfor the first time that water supply and forestry played animportant role for future generations.

3.2 Phase 2: 1970–1990

In the year 1973/1974 Austria, as all other countries, experi-enced the first Oil Crisis. At this time the government inAustria realized for the first time that an infinite growth inroad transport solely based on fossil fuels is not possible. Asa short-term measure, in the year 1974, the population inAustria was asked not to drive their car for 1 day per week.4

In this period Chancellor Kreisky mentioned in his govern-mental declaration for the first time that it is necessary for anoptimal accessibility within Austria to include all means oftransport into a national transport strategy (inclusion of road,rail and short distance public transport). It was also for the firsttime that the government made the suggestion to concentratethe responsibilities for the rail and the road network into onesingle ministry - as already mentioned above, it took further30 years until this was realized. In general, the overall strategywas still focused on road construction – as laid out in theBDringlichkeitsreihung1972 + 1975^ (Road Priority rankingStudy 1972 + 1975) [9], which was based on the„Gesamtve rkeh r skonzep t de r ö s t e r r e i ch i s chenBundesregierung: September 1968B(Austrian TransportMaster Plan 1968) [10]. Also road safety issues became moreand more important, and thus funds for road research and road

safety research were explicitly dedicated from 1971 onwardsto improve here the knowledge [11].

In the 1980s the improvement of the short-distance publictransport systemwas in the focus to enable rural commuters toreach the workplaces in the urban agglomerations withoutusing their own cars. In the rail system, new shunting yardswere planned to improve the freight transport on rail as roadfreight transit through Austria became a serious problem interms of congestion and environmental issues (noise and airpollution).

At the end of the 1980s, Chancellor Vranitzky postulated inhis government declaration that the objectives of the Austriantransport policy should be a shift of the existing transportdemand to that mean of transport which has the best propertiesregarding traffic safety, economic benefits, environment andefficiency.

Additionally a traffic safety campaign was initiated to re-duced traffic fatalities comprising safety education at schools,enforcement of speed and alcohol limits for car drivers, andthe installation of the so called BFührerschein auf Probe^ – alimited driving license for unexperienced car drivers.

In this period also the catalyst duty for private cars wasintroduced in Austria in 1987 (first country in Europe) [12].Further restrictions on road transport to shift freight transportto rail comprised the introduction of restrictive speed limits fornoisy heavy good vehicles, the introduction of a night driveprohibition on certain sensible routes, and the increase of ca-pacity of piggyback transport within Austria. Also the inlandwaterway, the river Danube was mentioned; here existing ca-pacities should be utilized in a more efficient way and thecooperation with other countries (mainly eastern Europeancountries) should be improved.

A similar approach was chosen for the national airline: hererelations with other European airlines were introduced to im-prove the overall service level and supply. In the rail sector, itwas suggested to simplify the organization structure towards amore service-orientated company. Until the year 1995, theAustrian railway company should deliver comparable bench-mark figures as other efficient rail operators in Europe.

3.3 Phase 3: 1990 – till today

In the year 1991, a document describing the Austrian transportpolicy named BDas Österreichische Gesamtverkehrskonzept1991 (Austrian Transport Masterplan 1991) [13] was pub-lished. In this document the overall objectives of theAustrian transport policy were laid out and a catalogue ofmeasures to reach these goals were listed. To provide an idea,some of the Bmeasures^ in the document are listed below:

& Making public transport more attractive& Promotion of piggyback transport& Land use measures to reduce the need for travel4 see https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96lpreiskrise

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& Set of norms to reduce the road-traffic-related emissions(noise and air pollution)

& Reduction of sulphur and lead content of fuels& Taxing of Bdirty^ lorries& Night drive prohibition for lorries& Creation of the opportunity to temporarily restrict the road

freight transport to ensure certain air quality standards& And some measures to improve road safety (law to use

child car restraint systems for children below 6 years or thecontrol of driving times for professional drivers)

It is worth mentioning here that, in this document, objec-tives of a transport policy and measures how to achieve theseobjectives are mixed up. For example, BMaking public trans-port more attractive^ is clearly an objective, whereas Bnightdrive prohibition for lorries^ is clearly a policy instrument.This mixing up of objectives and policy instruments is a wide-spread habit in transport planning and complicates seriouslythe assessment of policy strategies.

To summarize, as mentioned already in the correspondinggovernment declarations, the focus was to make the public trans-port more attractive, to reduce road-traffic-related emissions(noise and air pollution) and to introduce the concept of true costsin the transport sector. Another activity at this time was to plan toconstruct about 60.000 park-and-ride places to motivate com-muters to switch from private car to public transport.

In this period the negotiation between Austria and the EUtook place to become a full member of the EU. A major issuehere was the so called BTransitvertrag^, a contract whichshould cap the number of heavy good vehicles passing theBrenner route in Austria. For information - the Brenner routeis an environmentally sensible route serving as major corridorbetween Italy and Germany; the emissions caused by the highnumber of lorries (e.g. 1,55 million lorries in 2001 and 1,95million lorries in the year 2013) has been a serious issue. Toprovide an alternative for the road Brenner route, a discussionfor the construction of a Brenner rail tunnel was initiated.

In the year 1996 a new document was published by theAustrian government, which integrated the mode-specificmaster plans into a common intermodal Austrian MasterPlan [14]. In this period investment in transport infrastructureagain was seen to reduce the unemployment in Austria. Tofinance the planned infrastructure projects, it was envisaged touse Private Public Partnership models and to generate financ-ing through road pricing (a flat-rate road pricing(Autobahnvignette) on motorways for private cars was intro-duced in the year 1997).

In the year 2000 the coalition in Austria changed from aSocial Democratic and People’s Party coalition to a PeoplesParty and Freedom party coalition. In this period a concentra-tion of the agendas of road construction/maintenance and railnetwork construction/maintenance into a joint ministry calledFederal Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology

Austria (Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Innovation undTechnologie) took place. In the government declaration itwas mentioned that the objective of the Austrian transportpolicy should be the Bstrengthening of the Austria as a busi-ness location^. To archive this objective it was recommendedto:

& Open the rail market for competition and to ease the accessto rail infrastructure for foreign companies

& Creation of a inter-modal transport masterplan& Expansion of the rail and road network, plus improvement

of the inland waterways as an environmentally friendlymean of freight transport

& Optimization of public transport& Mode shift of new freight transport demand towards envi-

ronmentally friendly means of transport& Gap closure in the high level road network& Introduction of a distance based heavy good vehicle road

pricing system (Start date 1. January 2004)& Reorganization of the Austrian railway operator (separa-

tion between infrastructure and operation)& Ownership transfer of trunk roads from national state to

the federal states (in the year 2002)

In the year 2007 again there was a change in governmentcoalition from the former People’s Party / Freedom Party co-alition to a Social Democratic / People’s Party coalition. Thiscoalition is in place until today. The general orientation in theAustrian transport policy did not change; still the stimulationof the Austrian economic growth through improvements intransport infrastructure is the main focus.

Figure 9 summarises the historical development describedbefore using a time line. In the red rectangles one can seeimportant events happening on an European scale, such asWWI and WWII, the signature of the Austrian Treaty afterWWII (year 1955), the 1st Oil Crisis (year 1974), the 2nd OilCrisis (year 1980), the fall of the Iron Curtain (year 1989), theMaastricht Treaty (year 1993), Austria joining the EU (year1995), European Transport Policy for 2010: Time to decide(2001), White Paper on Transport (year 2011).

In blue rectangles one can see the publications dates of theBofficial^ published documents dealing with the Austrian trans-port policy, such as the BGesamtverkehrskonzept derösterreichischen Bundesregierung : September 1968^ (AustrianTr an spo r t Mas t e r p l an 1968 ) (y e a r 1968 ) , t h eBDringlichkeitsreihung1972 + 1975^ (Road Priority Rankingstudy 1972 + 1975) (year 1978), the BDringlichkeitsreihung1980^ (Road Priority Ranking study 1980) (year 1980), thefoundation of the ASFINAG – Austrian motorway financingcorporation in year 1982, the BDas ÖsterreichischeGesamtverkehrskonzept 1991^ (Austrian Transport MasterPlan 1991) (year 1991), the BDer österreichischeBundesverkehrswegeplan^ (Federal Transport Infrastructure

Eur. Transp. Res. Rev. (2017) 9: 6 Page 9 of 16 6

Plan 1998) (year 1998), the BGSD Studie^ (Design Study ofRoad Transport Network in the Danube Region – Study) (year1999), the BGVP-Ö^ (Austrian Transport Master Plan 2002)(year 2002) and the BGesamtverkehrsplan für Österreich^(Austrian Transport Master Plan 2013) (year 2013).

Figure 9 relates all these documents and events to the pop-ulation and car number development (on the left side Y-axis)and to the relative development of the consumed transportenergy and the GDP per head development (on the right sideY-axis) for the period 1900 to 2015.

3.4 Analysis of Bofficial^ documents in Austriaregarding transport policy

In this section an overview of the published documents re-garding transport policy is given. Column 1 of Table 1 showsthe year of publication. In column 2 the official abbreviationof the document is shown, then the full name in German andthe responsible author(s) are listed. In the column headedBObjectives^ the main objectives, listed within the specificdocument regarding transport policy are shown. In the columnheaded BTargets^ the target (−indicators) are listed, in the caseno target (−indicators) could be found in the document a com-ment by the author of this paper is shown. In the last columnheaded BComments by the author^, remarks concerning thedocument are provided. In total eight documents were pub-lished in Austria dealing with national transport policy in theperiod between 1968 and today.

The documents listed in Table 1 mainly have the objective togive advice which infrastructure projects should be realized andin which order. Especially the earlier documents focused on the

order of implementation under the constraints of financing, con-struction capacity and employment aspects. The transport policyin Austria in the period 1950–1970 and 1970–1990 can be clas-sified as solely Bdemand orientated^. Under the term Bdemandorientated^ provision of infrastructure one can understand thatthe infrastructure was built because the demand, mainly the de-mand for car mobility, should be satisfied. No transport demandmanagement measures to reduce/steer the demand for car mobil-ity were taken into consideration or included in the nationalAustrian transport policy in these periods.

In the document GVK-Ö 1991 for the first time the objec-tive BAvoidance of unnecessary traffic^ was mentioned.Unfortunately no monitor-able target (−indicators) were de-fined in this document, so it was not possible to assess theimplemented strategies against these indicators.

As it can be seen, this was only a very short period. In thefollowing published documents the economic point of view intransport policy making became again the dominating objec-tive, which can be clearly seen when looking at the objectivesof the BVWP (year 1998), the objectives of the GSD-Study(year 1999) and the GVP-Ö (year 2002), where the main ob-jectives were the BStrengthening of Austria as a businesslocation^. The paradigm BAvoidance of unnecessary traffic^completely disappeared from the agenda in the period be-tween 1998 and 2013.

The last published document, the Gesamtverkehrsplan fürÖsterreich (year 2013), again is now a modern, comprehen-sive TMP, where infrastructure improvements and also trans-port demand management measures are included and alsomonitor-able target (−indicators) are provided. This will en-able to assess the objective-fulfillment in a later stage. We will

Gesa

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979

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, 199

5

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pean

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3.0

4.0

5.0

6.0

7.0

8.0

9.0

10.0

0.0E+00

1.0E+06

2.0E+06

3.0E+06

4.0E+06

5.0E+06

6.0E+06

7.0E+06

8.0E+06

9.0E+06

1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020 tran

spor

t ene

rgy,

GD

P p

er C

apita

(195

0=1)

popu

la�o

n, n

umbe

r of c

ars

Years

Development of popula�on, number of cars [le� y-axis]GDP per Capita - rela�v, energy consump�on - rela�v (1950=1) [right y-axis]

and major events EU and Austria, 1900 -2015

Popula�on Private CarsPlannig documents in Austria Major events in EuropeGDP per Capita (1950 =1) Energy Consump�on Transport (1950=1)

Fig. 9 Development ofpopulation, number of cars(absolute), GDP per capita (in1990 International Geary-Khamisdollars), energy consumption fortransport – relative (1950 = 1) andmajor events (EU and Austria) forthe period 1900 till 2015

6 Page 10 of 16 Eur. Transp. Res. Rev. (2017) 9: 6

Table 1 Overview of transport policy related documents in Austria

Year 1. Abbreviation2. Title German3. Title – translation toEnglish (by the Author)4. Reference

Objectives Targets Comments by the author

1968 1. n.a.2. Gesamtverkehrskonzept

der österreichischenBundesregierung :September 1968

3. Transport Master Plan ofthe AustrianGovernment1968

4. [10]

n.a. n.a. Unfortunately it was not possible to get acopy of this document.

1977 1. n.a.2. Dringlichkeitsreihung

1972 + 19753. Road Priority Ranking

Study 1972 + 19754. [9]

Development of an objective, scientificmethod to rank road infrastructureprojects

Priority list of road constructionprojects (motorways and trunkroads) for all projects in Austria

Sectoral study, only road infrastructureproject under investigation.

Criteria are based on effectiveness ofconstruction cost, safety and trafficamount.

Scientific methodology, ranking biasedby political influence

1980 1. n.a.2. Dringlichkeitsreihung

19803. Road Priority Ranking

Study 19804. [15]

Improvement of the scientific methodapplied in the year 1972 and 1975 throughincluding of more detailed indicators(congestion, time savings, energy savings,road safety, environmental impact,accessibility, cost efficient) and theapplication of a 4-stage transport modelfor Austria to estimate the transport de-mand

Priority list of road constructionprojects (motorway and trunkroads) for the next 10 yearperiod

Sectoral study, only road infrastructureprojects under investigation.

Criteria are more detailed than before,but ranking is still biased by politicalinfluence

1991 1. GVK-Ö 19912. Das Österreichische

Gesamtverkehrskonzept1991

3. Transport Master Plan1991

4. [13]

1. Avoidance of unnecessary traffic2. Promotion of environmentally friendly

means of transport and redistributiontowards non-motorized means of trans-port

3. Use of newest technological standards4. Public participation5. Introduction of true cost pricing in the

transport sector6. Cooperation between different means of

transport

No monitor-able targets regardingtransport related indicators wereprovided

For the first time in Austria this wasoverarching transport master planincluding all means of transport

No monitor-able indicators were definedNo monitoring process was installed

1998 1. BVWP2. Der österreichische

Bundesverkehrswegepl-an

3. Austrian FederalTransport InfrastructurePlan

4. [14]

This document describes the process todetermine which infrastructure projectshave to be realized to fulfil the objectivesdescribed in the GVK-Ö-1991.

It summarizes the comprehensive scientificstudies carried out in different workpackages, such as project management,analysis, prognosis, suggestion for amultimodal transport infrastructurenetwork, and assessment. Output of theproject was a detailed list of infrastructureprojects for rail and road with a total sumof 21.8 billion Euro for the rail and 2.9billion Euro in the road sector.

No monitor-able targets regardingtransport related indicators wereprovided

The document provided a list ofinfrastructure projects which shouldbe realized in the coming decades tomeet the future demand.

No transport system relatedtargets/indicators or a monitoringprocess to monitor them was sug-gested.

1999 1. GSD Studie2. Gestaltung des

Straßennetzes imDonaueuropäischenRaum (GSD – Studie)

3. Design Study of RoadTransport Network in theDanube Region - Study

4. [16]

Only road network is taken intoconsideration!

1. Economic and social development bysaving space and environment

2. Ensuring the living and settlement space3. Offensive conservation of economic

development through improvement ofinnovation-, adaption-, andcompetitiveness-abilities

4. Road network design in accordance withthe principles of environmental, social and

No monitor-able targets were de-fined.

The GSD-study is a priority list for roadconstruction projects. The methodol-ogy for the ranking is not madeexplicit, and a strong political bias isidentifiable.

Eur. Transp. Res. Rev. (2017) 9: 6 Page 11 of 16 6

see what the Austrian government will achieve with this newattempt to solve the Austrian transport challenges.

4 The BIdeal Decision Making Process^ (IDMP)

Within the EU-funded project PROSPECTS - Procedures forRecommending Optimal Sustainable Planning of EuropeanCity Transport Systems [19] -, the decision-making processesfor urban transport planning were under investigation, and anBideal^ decision-making process for sustainable transportplanning in the European context was identified. This process,which incorporated results from a number of previous EUresearch projects, was described in detail in a BDecisionMakers Guidebook^ (DMG) ([20, 21]. The DMG was de-signed to help those involved in decisions on land use and

transport, in cities throughout Europe, whether as politicians,professional advisers, stakeholders or individual citizens.

This ideal decision making process cannot only be used toassess a urban planning processes; in the opinion of the author itcan also applied in a national context, which will be shown laterin this section. Before that, the general structure of the BIdealDecision Making Process^ will be introduced with Fig. 10:

The suggested IDMP contains the following initial steps:(1) a clear definition of objectives and indicators; (2) the ex-plicit definition of problems, at present and in the future; and(3) a specification of possible future scenarios. Subsequentsteps involve: (4) the identification of possible instrumentsto tackle the problems; (5) the assessment of those barriersto implementation which will arise for certain policy instru-ments; and (6) the development of strategies as packages ofinstruments that can to reduce the impact of the barriers.

Table 1 (continued)

Year 1. Abbreviation2. Title German3. Title – translation to

English (by the Author)4. Reference

Objectives Targets Comments by the author

economic orientated transport policyunder consideration of all means oftransport

2002 1. GVP-Ö2. Generalverkehrsplan

Österreich 2002 -verkehrspolitischeGrundsätze undInfrastrukturprogramm

3. Transport Master Plan2002

4.[17]

Sustainable Mobility1. Strengthening of Austria as a business

location2. efficient and demand-orientated extension

of transport networks3. improvement of transport safety4. secure financing of infrastructure projects5. to make implantation easier and faster

No measurable targets – solely alist of infrastructure projects,separated for road, rail, andinland water way improvementsare provided.

In the document for the first time thetopic Bmonitoring^ is addressed. Byreading through the correspondingchapter it was learned that monitoringcomprises only the monitoringwhether the suggested infrastructureprojects are realized or not.

No monitoring if the intended objectivesof the transport strategy could be metor not are foreseen.

2013 1. n.a.2. Gesamtverkehrsplan für

Österreich3. Transport Master Plan

Austria 20134. [18]

1. Social2. Safe3. Environmentally friendly4. Efficient

Ad 1) social• 2015 – all major train stations

(140) barrier free• Bonus malus system for

punctuality, cleanliness, andother quality factors, ticketprices close to inflation

Ad 2) Safety• -50% of fatalities till 2020• -20% of accidents with injured

peopleAd 3) Environment•CO2→ −19% till 2025 (base year

2010)• PM2,5 → -50% till 2025• NOx→ −70% till 2025Ad 4) Efficiency• Reduction of energy

consumption from 240Petajoule to 210 Petajoule in2025 (−13%)

• Significant reductions of traveltime for rail (west 30 min, south90 min)

In this document for the first timemonitor able- target values are ex-plicitly listed.

Although this is a step in the rightdirection when assessing thedocument against the Ideal DecisionMaking Process (detailed insection 4), no mitigation policies arementioned in the case the suggestedtarget values could not be achieved.

6 Page 12 of 16 Eur. Transp. Res. Rev. (2017) 9: 6

The next steps are concerned with assessment and involve:(7) the use of models to make quantified predictions of theimpacts of individual instruments and/or strategies; and (8) acomparison of these predictions, using an appraisal methodwhich is consistent with the previously specified objectives.These steps may well identify ways in which the instrumentsor strategies can be improved, and it is possible at this stage to(9) use optimization techniques to help identify suchimprovements.

The final steps in the process take places once a decisionhas been taken with respect to a particular instrument or strat-egy: (10) the instrument/strategy is implemented; (11) its per-formance is assessed against the original objectives (with suchassessment potentially helping to improve the predictive pro-cess); and (12) the ongoing regular monitoring of the instru-ment/strategy.

Exemplarily three elements out of the twelve above men-tioned elements of the IDMP will be discussed in more detailhere in this document. More information regarding the BIdealDecision Making Process^ and its application can be found in[22–24].

4.1 Objectives (1)

Objectives are broad statements of the improvements which acountry is seeking in its land use and transport system. It isimportant that decision-makers and other stakeholders deter-mine (preferably through public participation process) the ob-jectives which they wish to pursue.

Relating to sustainability, seven objectives are sug-gested in the DMG, including protection of the environ-ment, liveable streets and neighbourhoods, safety, equity

and social inclusion, economic efficiency, contributionto economic growth, and intergenerational equity.Usually it is not possible to satisfy all of the objectiveswhich may be desirable, as some of them will conflict;for example it is often difficult to improve economicgrowth without intruding into the environment.Therefore, priorities among objectives are important.

Still some European countries (UK [25], Germany [26],France [27], Austria) focus mainly on economic efficiencyand growth, with much less concern for environment and eq-uity. This leads to strategies which prioritise policy instru-ments relating to road infrastructure provision. It follows thatif objectives are set inappropriately (they are unbalanced), adesigned strategy cannot achieve sustainability.

Objectives relating to intergenerational equity, social inclu-sion and intergenerational equity are presently given the low-est priority in both Europe and elsewhere [24, p. 48]. It followsthat non-motorized transport (which is particularly associatedwith the poor, and which creates no pollution and has no needof fuel energy) is considered as unimportant by transport plan-ners and decision makers, as well as by those members of thepublic who are in a position to influence policy-making.

4.2 Policy instruments (4)

Policy instruments are the tools which can be used to over-come problems and achieve objectives. There are a number ofinstruments, which can be categorized by type of intervention:land use measures; infrastructure provision; management ofthe infrastructure; information provision; attitudinal and be-havioral measures; and pricing.

Policy instruments that attempt to change travel behavior(e.g. pricing, TDM (travel demand management) and attitudi-nal and behavioral measures) are rarely used.

4.3 Strategies (6)

There is no single solution to national, regional or urban trans-port problems. Thus, there is a need to develop a transport andland use strategy that consists of a combination of policy in-struments. Such a strategy is very likely to be more effectivethan applying only a single instrument. In this way synergycan be achieved.

For more information on the other elements of the BIdealDecision Making Process^ please see the Decision MakersGuidebook [24] which is downloadable for free.5

5 ht tp : / /www.ivv. tuwien.ac .a t /uploads/media /DMG_Engl ish_Version_2005_02.pdf.

Objectives, Indicators (1)

Assess problems (2)

Possible Instruments (4)

Predict Impacts (7)

Compare Solutions (8)

Implement (10)

Evaluate Performance (11)

Monitor (12)

Scenarios (3)

Barriers (5)

Possible Strategies (6)

Optimisation (9)

Appraisal (8)

Fig. 10 The BIdeal Decision Making Process^ (IDMP) introduced in theDecision Makers’ Guidebook

Eur. Transp. Res. Rev. (2017) 9: 6 Page 13 of 16 6

5 Assessment of the austrian TMP activitiesagainst the Bideal decision making process^

In this section an attempt is made to check which elements ofthe IDMP were included in the Austrian TMP activities.Table 2 provides therefor a concise overview of the findings:

The first 2 columns of Table 2 show again the publicationyear and the name of the corresponding documents. Column 3gives an indication whether the study scope was mono- ormulti–modal orientated. Columns 4 to 14 show if the corre-sponding TMP-study has included the corresponding IDMP-activities. A B+^-sign indicates that this activity was includedin the TMP-document, a B−^-sign indicates that this activitywas not included.

It can be seen that over time, the TMP documents becamemore comprehensive and more and more elements of theIDMP were included.

They improved from a mono-modal point of view towardsa multi-modal point of view. In a next step the identification ofproblems and scenarios was added to the TMPs, but still notransport demand management instruments were taken intoconsideration explicitly. A major step forward from the pointo f m e t h o d o l o g y , w a s t h e 2 0 1 3 p u b l i s h e dBGesamtverkehrsplan für Österreich 2013^, which includednearly all elements suggested by the IDMP. Only the monitor-ing process and the feedback to the Bassess problems^-activitywas not explicitly addressed in this document and should beintegrated in future TMPs.

Summarizing, the framework of the IDMP is a useful toolto assess the quality of national and regional TPMs. The ap-plication of the IDMP shows the deficits in these documentsand shows that only if all parts of the IDMP (elements 1 to 12)are installed in a specific country/region a serious assessmentof the transport policies/strategies implemented can be carriedout. Especially the definition of target indicators and the in-stallation of related mid/long term monitoring processes are aprecondition for an assessment. It seems that responsiblepoliticians/institutions are aware of this issue, but are not verykeen to install these processes, because then their failure inachieving the proposed results can be seen explicitly.

6 Conclusions

In this paper the overall development of some key indicatorswhich describe Austria’s development regarding the transportsector is given and time series from 1900 till today for a set ofindicators are provided. In parallel to this, the governmentconstellations in Austria were listed and the correspondinggovernment declarations were shown and summarized. Byanalysing the government declarations three distinct phasesin the Austrian transport policy could be identified:

Phase 1, Between1950 and 1970, put a clear focus on recon-struction after WWII and a clear focus on road con-struction and employment aspects.

Phase 2, Between 1970 and 1990, was influenced by the OilCrises and following that, an integration took placefrom a mono-modal point of view towards a multi-modal view including some first attempts to inte-grate environmental issues, too. Still, these twophases were dominated by the concept of demandorientated infrastructure provision.

Phase 3, Comprising the period from 1990 onwards untiltoday, can be characterized that at the beginningenvironmental issues became more important –key phrase BAvoidance of unnecessary traffic^,but this was only a very short episode in theAustrian transport policy. Very soon the main ob-jective of the Austrian transport policy was againdominated by an economic point view – keyphrase BStrengthening of Austria as a businesslocation^.

The activities documented in BGesamtverkehrsplan fürÖsterreich 2013^ show a shift towards a more scientificbased approach to solve the transport related challenges– but it is too early to assess the outcome of this processat present.

The application of IDMP framework derived in thePROSPECTS project [19] on the Austrian TMPs showedclearly the improvement in the quality and comprehensivenessof the TMP documents over time. While TMPs from the1960ies till the 1980ies were solely mono-modal youngerdocuments addressed all means of transport. Further it couldbe shown that younger documents became more sophisticatedbecause they comprise additionally the identification of trans-port related environmental challenges, they include potentialfuture scenarios and there are listed potential instruments/policy packages to mitigate the negative impacts of transport.

Similar research should be carried out for other countries/regions of the world, too, to identify the current state of thetransport planning practice in these countries regarding theIDMP-framework and to help to improve their TMPs towardscompleteness.

This contribution here is a first attempt to carry out astructured analysis of the transport policy activities inAustria. It turned out that long term data series are verydifficult to obtain and that it is difficult to identify theimpacts of the past TMPs and assess their outcomeagainst reality. One problem identified is that TMPsthe most of the time do not include dedicated numericvalues for target indicators. For example there exist nodefinitive values for modal split shares or CO2-emis-sions in the existing TMP documents, therefore an as-sessment against these target values is not possible, yet.

6 Page 14 of 16 Eur. Transp. Res. Rev. (2017) 9: 6

Tab

le2

Assessm

ento

ftheAustrianTMPactiv

ities

againstthe

BIdealDecisionMakingProcess^

Year

Docum

ent(TPM

)IdealD

ecisionMakingProcess(Elements1to

12)

mono/m

ultim

odal

1-Objectiv

es1-Indicators

2-AssessProblems

3-Scenarios

4-Instruments

(infrastructure)

4-Instruments(TDM)

1968

Gesam

tverkehrskonzept

derösterreichischen

Bundesregierung:S

eptember1968

n.a.

n.a.

n.a.

n.a.

n.a.

n.a.

n.a.

1977

Dringlichkeitsreihung1972+1975

mono-modal

++

--

+-

1980

Dringlichkeitsreihung1980

mono-modal

++

--

+-

1991

Das

Österreichische

Gesam

tverkehrskonzept

1991

multi-modal

+-

++

+-

1998

Der

österreichischeBundesverkehrsw

egeplan

multi-modal

+-

++

+-

1999

Gestaltu

ngdesStraßennetzesim

Donaueuropäischen

Raum

(GSD

–Studie)

mono-modal

+-

--

+-

2002

Generalverkehrsplan

Österreich2002

-verkehrspolitische

GrundsätzeundInfrastrukturprogram

mmulti-modal

+-

++

+-

2013

Gesam

tverkehrsplanfürÖsterreich

mono-modal

++

++

++

Year

IdealD

ecisionMakingProcess(Elements1to

12)

5-Barriers

6-Possiblestrategies

7-Predictim

pacts

8-Com

pare

solutio

ns/appraisal

9-Optim

isation

10-Implem

ent

11-Evaluate

performance

12-M

onito

r

1968

n.a.

n.a.

n.a.

n.a.

n.a.

n.a.

n.a.

n.a.

1977

--

--

--

-+

1980

--

--

-+

--

1991

--

--

-+

--

1998

--

+-

-+

--

1999

--

--

-+

--

2002

--

--

-+

--

2013

++

++

-+

--

Eur. Transp. Res. Rev. (2017) 9: 6 Page 15 of 16 6

Further adequate monitoring systems are still not fully im-plemented on a regular basis, for example, household surveys,which are necessary to derive modal split figures were onlycarried out in the year 1995 and 2015 (data from this surveyare not available yet) in Austria.

Therefore monitoring systems, such as constantly recurringhousehold surveys should be carried out at least every10 years, or even better every 5 years, to provide the necessaryinformation how the in the TMPs suggested and implementedpolicy strategies perform against a specific set of target indi-cators as for example modal split, number of trips per day perperson, travel time budget, energy consumption for mobility,etc. These monitoring processes should be harmonized withinall EU-countries and have to be installed EU wide to enablecross comparisons of the transport systems between all EUcountries to check whether the overall transport system isdeveloping towards sustainability.

Acknowledgements I would like to express my thanks to the unknownreviewers of the manuscript for their useful comments to improve thequality of the paper and my colleagues here at the Institute forTransportation, University of Technology Vienna, for their support duringthe paper writing process, for their useful hints where to find time seriesdata and for their comments on the paper. The author acknowledge theTU Wien University Library for financial support through its OpenAccess Funding Program.

Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the CreativeCommons At t r ibut ion 4 .0 In te rna t ional License (h t tp : / /creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use,distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appro-priate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to theCreative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

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